Tracking dogs for finding wounded big game. Also dachshunds for blood tracking, field trials, their breeding, training and more.

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Saturday, May 4, 2013

Keeping your tracking dog in shape!

by John Jeanneney

Now that tracking season is over, there’s a real risk that
your dog will get soft and fat. You can’t keep him in shape by working training line a week, and his excess energy
may make him a difficult companion in the house. Exercise is needed for both
dogs and people, and this is especially important as we get into middle
age. At 78 I like to think that older
dogs and handlers are the most experienced and skillful, but we do have to pay
attention to muscle tone and tummy tuck-up.

We all have
worked hard to teach our tracking dogs that hot deer lines are a No! No! We are
not ready to turn are dogs loose in the off season and run the risk that they
will bump deer and forget what they have been taught. Depending on your own age
and condition you can jog a few miles with them or “road” them from your ATV.
Better yet train your dog to roam about off lead as you search together for sheds
or trim out your deer stands for the
upcoming season.

Taking a
walk in the woods with your tracking dogs is not as simple as it should be.
Labs and curdogs will usually stay fairly close. Hounds, including dachshunds,
have a greater tendency to range out too far. Your dog must handle, stay in
contact and explore the area within a 100 yards or so. If there is a problem
with recall, the best solution is a remote (electronic) collar used gently and
intelligently. If the dog drifts out and doesn’t respond to your voice, give
him a buzz with the vibrator on the collar and follow up with a low level electric
“nick”. The dog must have a clear idea of what “Come!” means before you begin
this collar training. You have to work upward from the
lowest electric nick levels until you find what is just powerful enough to get
the attention of your dog. The sensitivity of individual dogs to electrical
“stimulation” varies. Once your dog learns to associate the buzz of the
vibrator and the mild electric shock, you will be able to communicate by
vibrator alone. This means that you can let the dog work out around you without
calling him and spooking any wildlife you might be interested in.

Long walks with your tracking dog
in interesting terrain are something that will keep you both in shape for fall.
Think how steep those hills are going to be if you let that belly fat build up.
A word of caution for small dog folks: Avoid
dusk, after dark and early dawn outings. These are the hours when coyotes are
on the move. I know of three cases where coyotes killed small dogs at night.
One was my own Jack Russell, who was a great underground dog if not much of a
tracker.

Some handlers are reluctant to let
their dogs do anything but track wounded big game. What if the dog bumps a deer
and forgets everything he has been taught? Actually mature dogs are more
discriminating than we sometimes realize. For a smart, versatile pointing dog
like a Drahthaar there is no contradiction between hunting birds and tracking wounded deer. Dogs are very aware
of cues. When the tracking collar and leash go on at the hit site, this is
their signal to focus on the scent line of wounded big game.

Dachshunds and beagles can be used
for both tracking and rabbit hunting. We consistently do this with our
dachshunds. In both activities they use their running muscles and their noses.
On rabbits they learn to work checks and backtracks; this enhances their blood
tracking skills. For dachshunds competitive AKC field trials on cottontails are
another activity to keep a tracking dog sharp and in shape.

Susanne Hamilton's Buster (FC Clown vom Talsdeich)

is an outstanding blood tracker and winner of two

Dachshund Club of America National field trials.

When you are dealing with versatile
dogs, from dachshunds to Drahthaars, you do have to determine your priorities.
If tracking wounded big game is going to be the most important activity, it is
best to introduce the puppy to this sort of scent work first. As the young dog
understands that tracking wounded
big game is the most important thing in the world, he will learn to ignore
rabbits or birds when tracking on the long leash. A Drahthaar may end up not being
as high headed and wide ranging as a pheasant specialist, but he will perform
both jobs well.

The more you work with your dog in
different hunting activities, the more
the dog/handler cooperation will carry over from one activity to another. This
brings to mind the career of Clary, my second wirehaired dachshund, and my most
versatile dog of all time.

With Clary, I could not begin with
training for tracking wounded deer. In 1971 this has not been legalized yet in any of the northern
states. We started by hunting rabbits, squirrels and raccoons. Clary was a
puppy sensation until her first birthday. Then she crashed into six months of
adolescence incompetence until her brain began to function well once more. At 18
months she rediscovered her old self confirming all my early hopes. Clary would
run rabbits in daylight and ignore them at night when coons were our game. During
the day she quickly sensed whether I was hunting pheasants or rabbits, and she would
quarter closely or range farther out as the situation required. This early introduction
to small game work is not what I would recommend today for every dog, but in
Clary’s particular case it was not a problem.

When a DNR official with law enforcement
credentials legally requested that I track a wounded deer, Clary took a
bloodless four hour line a quarter of a
mile to the deer. Clary was then four years old and had never chased a healthy
deer or tracked a wounded one. Yet Clary immediately sensed what I wanted her to
do and acted as if she had been “blood tracking” all her life. Her earlier
experiences of cooperation in hunting with me carried over to this new task.

In the case
of most breeds a tracking dog does not have to be a specialist for just one
thing. If you work with your dog year round, he will understand you and cooperate better during the tracking
season. And he will stay in shape.

Clary von Moosbach with her dam Carla vom Rode. By the way, Carla was the first dachshund imported by John from Germany; she was born in February 1965.

Best book about blood tracking dogs in English.

Who we are

John and I (Jolanta) breed and use wirehaired dachshunds for tracking wounded big game and hunting. We live in Berne, NY with 10 dachshunds. We are dog breeders, hunters, trackers, field trialers, educators, writers and self-publishers. Contact us atinfo@born-to-track.com. More info about us and our dogs at www.born-to-track.com

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All material, unless otherwise stated is Copyright (c) by Jolanta and John Jeanneney. All rights reserved. No Reproduction Allowed Without Prior Permission.No one has paid for a listing or reference on this blog.